They are going to show some very, very low scores.
The scores will be so drastically different from previous years because these tests were a) based on the new Common Core standards and b) had difficulty levels ramped up several grade levels for each grade (i.e., what used to be tested on the fifth grade math test now was on the 3rd grade test and the time allotments for the tests were cut from previous years.)
You can bet that Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Walcott will do their best tomorrow to spin these low results as the fault of "bad teachers" and "failing schools" tomorrow when they give their press conference.
The Times reported that the city and the union have already been trying to spin the results before they're released and that the low scores threaten Bloomberg's education legacy.
The city is going to argue that these are new "baseline" scores and that improvement will follow each year as Mayor Bloomberg's vaunted education legacy goodness filters down through the schools and helps all the "bad teachers" Bloomberg hasn't been able to fire get up to speed on these new 21st century Common Core standards.
But NY1 reports that the NYCDOE still doesn't have Common Core curriculum materials ready for elementary and middle school teachers:
New York is implementing new national learning standards, called the Common Core, much quicker than most other states. But educators say that means they have not had the textbooks, teaching guides, worksheets and timelines they need to teach the day-to-day lessons.
"It's almost as if you're asking, you know, a truck driver to deliver goods without a truck," said Michael Mulgrew, the president of the United Federation of Teachers.
It was only in May that principals got the chance to choose a curriculum recommended by the city.
Schools do not have to use one of the city's recommended curricula, but 87 percent decided to this year. In the past, it has been about 70 percent.
Now with September fast approaching, most of what schools ordered has still not arrived.
"The problem is the teachers need the curriculum in July and August because that's when they plan for the year," said Mulgrew.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt says its math curriculum is on track to be delivered to 600 elementary schools this month, as is Scholastic's English curriculum, which 230 middle schools have ordered.
But the nearly 900 schools that chose curricula from Pearson, the same publishing company that produces the state tests, face a more complicated timeline.
Materials are being posted online throughout the summer and fall and shipped to schools in bits and pieces. The student textbooks should arrive in time for each lesson, but just barely in many cases.
Several teaching guides are scheduled to arrive after schools should have used them, although Pearson says it will post them online in advance.
As Diane Ravitch noted in this post, tomorrow many in the education reform establishment and the corporate media are going to use these 3rd-8th grade ELA and math scores as proof positive that NY State schools are "failing" and there are tens of thousands of "bad teachers" across the state who need to be weeded out by the new APPR teacher evaluation system.
And yet, here in the city teachers did not have the materials to teach students what would be on the Common Core tests last year, which automatically calls these scores into question.
But even this year, teachers will be scrambling to get students ready for the tests because the vendors who are supposed to deliver the curriculum materials - including the incompetents at Pearson - can't meet the deadlines and get the stuff to schools on time.
Please remember all of this tomorrow as the usual corporate education reform concern trolls wring their hands in the media about the low scores and what it means for the schools and for students.
It really means nothing because they gave these Common Core tests before teachers had the material to prepare students for them, though you can bet the reformy people will not message it that way to the public.
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